


My Boy Builds Coffins

by Miss_Psychotic



Series: Between The Boy and His Wolf [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Analysis, Character Death, Gen, M/M, Mentions of Death, Post Season 2, Season 2 spoilers, Songfic, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-30
Updated: 2012-08-30
Packaged: 2017-11-13 04:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/499263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Psychotic/pseuds/Miss_Psychotic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails<br/>He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails<br/>He doesn't make tables, dressers, or chairs<br/>He can't carve a whistle 'cause he just doesn't care</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Boy Builds Coffins

**Author's Note:**

> The song for this fic is My Boy Builds Coffins by Florence and The Machine. If you’re not familiar with the song probably a good idea to look it up and have a listen (Album version not live) enjoy reading and let me know what you think =]
> 
> Beta'd by the wonderful Mint <3

**  
**

 

_My boy builds coffins with hammers and nails_

_He doesn't build ships, he has no use for sails_

_He doesn't make tables, dressers, or chairs_

_He can't carve a whistle 'cause he just doesn't care_

 

Derek doesn’t think. He does. He hammers in nails, and saws wood, he gets his white wife beater filthy with sweat and grime, sawdust and ash. He hollows the house, ripping apart dressers and chairs for usable wood. Stiles watches and admires his dexterity, there could have been a career in this, he thinks but Derek wouldn’t care.

The house is half gone, upstairs hollowed and downstairs open except for support beams and the stairs.

Derek had a load of wood delivered to the front yard two days ago and hasn’t stopped since; measuring, cutting, sanding, hammering, building.

Stiles thinks he’s building coffins. The wood and the ash the death and decay of the place, it just. It feels like he’s building coffins, hammering wood to the walls, closing up gaps, hammering nails in the coffin lid. Boxing up the death that lingers, rebuilding from ashes. Moving on and laying his family to rest.

 

_My boy builds coffins for the rich and the poor_

_Kings and queens them all knocked on his door_

Derek builds for days and weeks, at the start he knew what he was getting into. His family deserved better than what he was giving them. Deserved closure, peace. He built this house with them, he’ll rebuild it over them, restore it to its former glory so his new family can move in. Jackson and Lydia expecting the creature comfort of kings and queens, while Issac, Scott and Stiles not minding, just appreciating a roof over their heads.

 

_Beggars and liars, gypsies and thieves_

_They all come to him 'cause he's so eager to please_

 

He’ll build it up strong and sure, a wall of wood encasing the concrete foundations and supports and walls, fortified, no one will be able to burn his house again. No one will be able to harm his family, his pack.

He’d been so stupid; Kate, the liar and thief, wormed her way into his life. Just a young boy, middle child, ignored accomplishments and exaggerated disappointments, a lonely, desperate boy who was suddenly the focus of a pretty young woman’s charms. The recipient of her warm smile and, coy grins, a boy eager to please his new found ‘love’, willing to let down walls his family had spent years putting into place and enforcing.

And look how it turned out.

 

_My boy builds coffins he makes them all day_

_But it's not just for work and it isn't for play_

 

Derek doesn’t stop. He builds and builds. Measure, saw, hammer, nail. It’s methodical, therapeutic - cathartic even - the repetitive motions easing his mind. It makes him numb, too focused on building, on pack, on keeping them safe, to put any thought into himself. The burnt and rotting walls comes down, along with the memories. The lounge where each Christmas his family would pile blankets and pillows onto the floor and cuddle up in front of the fire, laughing and joking. The adults talking in innuendos the children weren’t old enough to understand. Playful fighting and puppy piles. It all comes down as Derek pulls apart the room, the wood faded and heavy with time and memories and replacing it with new blank, cold, solid wood and concrete, no love, no care, not even the slight ghost of the past, just cold, hard and clinical.

 

_He's made one for himself_

 

Derek works hard to ensure the house is fortified. One day it will be his coffin too, knows the only way anyone would get inside would be because they were a wolf. The back of his mind tingles with nerves over the Alpha pack. But he knows his pack is Strong. Boyd and Erica will come back, they’ll be accepted and when it comes time, Scott will take over as Alpha and they’ll bury him in the burial space he’s making in the basement. They’ll bury him as a wolf, just how he wants it, just how he did with Laura.

 

_One for me too_

 

Stiles watches Derek work, in the basement now, pouring concrete over hard earth, except for a strategic section which will have a room built over it, the burial room, there’s no way a wolf can be buried properly in a normal cemetery. And with the looming threat of the Alphas’, Stiles knows the chances of Derek getting out alive are slim, but he’s oddly okay with this, because Stiles knows that he will be by his side, like he always has been and always is. Stiles will lie in this coffin with him, gladly. Stiles thinks Derek knows, that’s half the part of being a Mate, one can’t be without the other.

_One of these days he'll make one for you_

 

Derek is building this house for pack. For future generations Allison and Scott will produce, for pups that Lydia and Jackson will have. For Isaac and his mate when the right one comes along, and hopefully their next generation too. Derek builds the house to last. Scott’s under strict orders that the house will always be known as Hale Manor, and that the pack and territory be referred to as Hale. Scott happily agreed. Hales, will occupy this land for many long years, and Derek builds them a house to live in, and a safe burial ground for when there time comes.

He builds coffins for himself, His Mate and his Pack.

 

_My boy builds coffins for better or worse_

_Some say it's a blessing, some say it's a curse_

 

Stiles worries, he always does but it’s getting worse. Derek hasn’t stopped for more than two to three hours a night for the last 11days. He’s powering through the renovations. Ripping down everything he once knew, ripping away the memories of his family and replacing them with nothing. The Pack worry too.

Scott and Jackson are under the impression it’s good for Derek, to get it all down and out of the way, he’ll live and move on, to start something new, rebuild from the ashes and whatnot.

Lydia and Isaac are with Stiles. How will Derek feel once it’s done? Once he has nothing left of his family? Regret, remorse? It’ll hurt him in the long run, wolves are pack animals, and he’s just removing all reminders of his old pack and replacing it with new, will his wolf like that? What will it do to his wolf; to tear away it’s home and family, all that he once knew? Would his instincts match up to the human rationality?

Stiles worries and it’s not for the Alpha pack.

 

_He fits them together in sunshine or rain_

_Each one is unique, no two are the same_

 

Two days later it’s starts raining. Not just a mediocre shower, but a downpour, soaking the earth under foot, some patches of the front yard flood and the lake out back overflows. Derek moves the wood inside and keeps going. He’s finished the outside, and the roof, the whole house now able to be locked down. It’s the inside that needs to be fixed now. He carefully pulls apart each of his family members rooms, combs through for any personal item that’s redeemable and puts them in a box for later.

When he gets to his parents room he pauses. He knows it’s just all in his head but for a brief moment the thought he could still smell them, the strong earthy tones of his mother, the wood musk of his father. His heart skips a beat, but just as quickly as it came, it disappeared. And Derek was left with nothing but a burnt and charred room smelling like smoke, fungus and ash.

Derek rebuilds each room differently. There’s a room for Jackson and Lydia, but with an adjacent door to the next room in case they need a “cooling off” period which happens occasionally.

Their room is done up in lush colours and textures, fit for a king and queen like he knows they think they are.

Scott and Allison have a much more mellow room, but it oozes family, they also have an adjacent room, for when they have their first pup. That room is currently a light purple, Derek knows, just _knows_ that Scott and Allison will have a girl first. It reminds him though, of how the place used to be.

Isaac’s room is plain, just how the boy likes things. Soft greens and browns of the forest and a big window for lots of natural light, very open, and very _not_ like a freezer in the basement.

Erica and Boyd’s rooms are bare for now; they’ll decorate them if and when they come home. He misses them.

Derek pauses at the Master Bedroom, deep reds and sharp edged black with silver for light. Stiles loves the colours, Derek can see it in his eyes when he shows him the room as soon as it’s finished being painted, his brand new white shirt Stiles brought him now spotted with red and black. Stiles clasps his hands together, gasping, before spreading his arms out wide and hugs Derek, smiling happily. Stiles and Derek will share this room until… until the Alpha’s come and whatever happens, happens.

 

_My boy builds coffins and I think it's a shame_

_That when each one's been made, he can't see it again_

 

Stiles knows a little bit about the house from before the fire. Derek and his family used to live in separate houses around the outskirts of town while they were building. It was a slow process and Derek was old enough to help out for some of it. Stiles thinks it’s a shame his family can’t see how beautiful the house is now. How great it’s looking. The wiring’s just gone in and they have electricity now, and running hot water. The house is turning into a home. It’s bittersweet really because with the threat of the Alphas looming over them who knows how long Stiles and Derek will get to enjoy it.

It’s like with the house before the fire, Derek helped build it, got to live in it happily for a time and then it was gone. Kind of like now, but the house will remain, just Derek who will be gone. It’s funny how irony works.

_He crafts every one with love and with care_

_Then it's thrown in the ground and it just isn't fair_

 

So much time and effort in getting it all ready, the hours upon hours of endless work into building a home for his pack, a den for their pups. The hunters destroyed it the first time but not again. Derek is so proud when people start moving in.

Stiles is first, of course, but he spends the weekends and his dad’s days off with the sheriff.

Jackson and Lydia are next, making themselves right at home.

Derek watches as the house seems to grow with them, memories etching their way into the walls, finally replacing the empty walls with warmth, and he couldn’t be happier; which just makes it all the more harder to face the fact that soon the Alphas will be here and he might not get to make any more impressions on the house.

 

_My boy builds coffins he makes them all day_

_But it's not just for work and it isn't for play_

 

There’s still rooms he needs to fix up, rooms who got a new door and a lock but hadn’t had anything done to the inside.

One of them is Laura’s room. Stiles finds Derek sitting on the floor hand resting against what looks like a paint handprint on the wall. Without a word, Stiles has gotten better at keeping quiet when Derek needs him too, he drops down gracelessly next to Derek and just leans against him for support.

Derek has a few tears making their way down his cheeks but he doesn’t wipe at them. Just stares at the last remaining hand print. Each year on her birthday Laura would pick different colour paint and put a hand print on her wall. Showing the growth she developed. All but one had been destroyed in the fire, the first one, the littlest one.

Stiles stood when Derek did and just stepped into the doorway, watching the wolf tear out the last of the burnt wood and replace it with the new.

Stiles took the board with the handprint and hid it from Derek, to save it from the massive bonfire he knew was coming once this was all done.

 

_He's made one for himself_

 

When the Alpha’s arrive on the front doorstep it’s two days after Allison admits she’s pregnant. Derek orders everyone to stay inside while he deals with them.

There’s words, hissed too low for Stiles to hear and the wolves are too busy growling for any of them to tell him what’s being said but Stiles knows it’s not good. Knows this is it.

Derek built this house to be his coffin and he’s ready to die.

Once he does the Alpha’s will assess Scott, find that he has a mate and that the mate is producing pups and they will be happy with that and leave the new Hale pack in peace.

Derek wishes he and Stiles could have pups, that they could be properly mated.

 

_One for me too_

 

Stiles doesn’t watch as Derek is killed. It’s all too much for him and he’s crying before he knows it and the pain of losing his mate starts to take hold. They were mated as much as possible without Stiles being a wolf or a woman, but apparently it wasn’t enough for the Alphas who demanded a traditionalist way of life. A mate isn’t a mate if they can’t produce pups.

Stiles can feel a part of him slip away as Derek slowly draws his last breath and then he’s gone and all that fills the silence is Stiles agonising wail.

It’s not going to be long before Stiles goes too. They all know it but no one says anything.

 

_One of these days he'll make one for you_

 

 The Alphas accept Scott and Allison, congratulating them on the pup before going on their way, like they hadn’t just killed two of their own.

Lydia and Stiles had spent days and days researching how Peter came back but alas couldn’t figure anything out. But they would keep trying until the grief took Stiles and then Lydia and the Pack would figure it out.

Then Derek and Stiles could come home, and continue making coffins for the future generations.

 

 

 


End file.
